About
William Toutant
Introduction
Serendipity
(I discover “classical” music)
The year was 1958. I had never heard any “classical” music. My parents did have many recordings of big band music and polkas (my mother was Polish), and I listened to them with interest. Then, at age 10, I heard two classmates in 5th grade play accordion at a school function. I had always wanted to study piano, but my parents could not afford one. Since there was an accordion teacher in Littleton, NH, where we lived, the piano accordion became my first instrument. Then one Friday while grocery shopping with my mother, I noticed a display at the market. The first volume of the 24 LP set of “The World’s Greatest Music” was on sale for 35 cents. I bugged my mother to purchase it. She thought I would find this genre of music boring, but she relented and spent the 35 cents to shut me up. The gimmick was that each volume contained at least one incomplete work. One had to purchase the next volume to acquire the rest of the incomplete work, but that volume also contained another incomplete work. The successive LPs came out one per week and cost $1.35. That first LP contained Bizet’s Carmen Suite, Rimsky-Korsakov’s suite from “Le Coq d’Or,” the Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Dukas, and the final movement of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. When I put on the Bizet, I was immediately hooked. I loved all four selections on the LP, and could not wait to hear the rest of the Rachmaninov concerto. The following week, my mother spent $1.35 on volume 2 so I could hear the rest of Rachmaninov’s concerto. However, volume 2 also had the first two movements of Scheherazade, so the next week, she purchased volume 3 so I could hear the rest of that piece. Volume 3 also had the third and fourth movements of Dvořák’s New World Symphony. Needless to say, the gimmick kept working each week, and eventually I had all 24 volumes. I later discovered that the performances were not the best, but they opened up a whole new world for me. I still have all 24 LPs. In addition to those 24 discs, I borrowed every classical disc available at the Littleton Public Library, and soon became an avid collector of classical LPs.
I became an avid reader of biographies of composers. My first was “Beethoven and the Chiming Tower Bells” by Opal Wheeler. Even though I was in the 5th or 6th grade, I found the book a bit simplistic, so I read “Beethoven, the Man Who Freed Music” by Robert Haven Schauffler. I also read collections of short biographies of composers. Soon, I exhausted all the composer biographies in the Littleton Public Library and had the librarians borrow biographies from the New Hampshire State Library. I decided that I wanted to be a composer.
Quick Links
High School
My parents were originally from Webster, Massachusetts. My father died prematurely when I was 12. My mother and I moved back to Webster after I finished grade school. I was accepted into an excellent Catholic high school that had a college preparatory curriculum but no music or art. Although I continued accordion lessons, I focused more on my studies, and especially one extra-curricular activity—debate. I never stopped listening to “classical” music or playing the accordion, but I stopped my accordion lessons because homework and debate preparation left me little time to practice, and there was precious little original “classical” music for the piano accordion.
During this time, I discovered that nearby Worcester, MA held an annual music festival with The Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Paul Paray in residence. I persuaded my aunt to take me to some of their concerts. These were my first experiences with live orchestral music. Little did I realize at the time how lucky I was to hear soloists such as David Oistrakh, Yehudi Menuhin, Risë Stevens, and Van Cliburn. I convinced my mother to buy a piano so I could resume music with a repertoire I loved. My teacher was amazed that I sightread the first volume of the piano course he wanted to use. He decided just to use repertoire, but never had me practice scales or arpeggios. It was not a solid grounding in piano technique.
Exposition
The George Washington University
During my senior year, I applied to The George Washington University in Washington, DC because it had an excellent program in international affairs, my intended major, and also had an outstanding intercollegiate debate program. I threw myself into my studies and debate. The GWU campus is a short walk from Constitution Hall, then the home of The National Symphony Orchestra. One evening, I decided to attend a National Symphony concert conducted by guest conductor Alfred Wallenstein. This rekindled my love of music. The best orchestra seats in 1967 cost $4.50, except when a major guest orchestra like the Boston Symphony under Erich Leinsdorf came to town. Then the top price went up to $5.50! In spite of my workload with my studies and debate preparation, I attended many concerts. I also enrolled in a music appreciation class as an elective. Since I had a music background and knew the basic repertoire, I easily “aced” the course.
By the end of my sophomore year, I realized that I did not love what I was studying. The career goal for an international affairs major was probably the US Foreign Service, and my debate experiences prepared me for a career in law. Neither of those career paths interested me. I wanted to pursue music. I made an appointment of see Professor George Steiner, the chair of the GWU Department of Music. He had also been my professor for music appreciation. Even with my limited background in music, he was happy to accept me as a major because the department was very small and needed enrollment to justify its existence. I needed to catch up with the music requirements, so I enrolled in first and second semester harmony during summer school. My professor was Robert Parris, a brilliant musician and fine composer. I recall that he thought I was quite careless in my harmony assignments. Midway through the first semester of harmony, Professor Parris took me aside and said, “I think you have some talent, but you are entirely too sloppy in your assignments. From now on, if I see a single set of parallel fifths in any assignment, I will fail you not only for that assignment, but for the entire course. You’ll then lose an entire year because you’ll have to take harmony over again next semester.” I never wrote another parallel fifth!
GWU had a very small music program. This was great advantage for me. I was interested in conducting and enrolled in Professor Steiner’s conducting class. He allowed his better students to conduct the GWU Orchestra during one rehearsal so we could get an idea of what it was like to actually lead an orchestra rather than simply follow a recording. I was hooked and became his assistant. The orchestra gave one concert per semester, and he assigned me one piece to conduct on each concert. He always challenged me. I recall that on one afternoon he gave me the score to “The Walk to the Paradise Garden” by Delius and told me, “This is your piece for the concert this semester. You start rehearsing tonight.!” I had about 4 hours to learn the score. Steiner also conducted the Alexandria Symphony, a local community orchestra. I also was his assistant there, but my duties consisted mainly of arranging the stage before each rehearsal and concert and playing percussion parts that required little more than counting and hitting something. Still, I learned to count and come in at the right time.
I continued to collect recordings and attend concerts at Constitution Hall. The day after my debut conducting the GWU Orchestra, the music director of the National Symphony, Howard Mitchell, announced his retirement. Shortly afterward, the well-known conductor, Antal Dorati, was announced as his replacement. I wrote to Dorati asking for permission to attend his rehearsals. I received a letter from the orchestra manager telling me that Maestro Dorati had agreed to let me attend his rehearsals. I was able to attend not only Dorati’s rehearsals, but those of most guest conductors, including such greats as Yehudi Menuhin and Leopold Stokowski.
Temple University
In 1969, while still an undergraduate at GWU, I was accepted into the conducting program at the six-week Temple University Summer Institute in Ambler PA, where the Zagreb Philharmonic, under Milan Horvat, would be in residence. This was my first exposure to conducting students from Julliard, Curtis, and The Cleveland Institute. I was amazed at how talented these student conductors were. I was also dismayed at how much backbiting and spitefulness there was among the students. It seems very few could admit that any other student had any stick technique or musical talent. Henry Charles Smith, who conducted the student orchestra, and Maestro Horvat both gave what were essentially conducting masterclasses. Each student conducted a small ensemble or just a pianist several times and were given constructive criticism from Smith and Horvat, and disparagement from most of the other students. Near the end of the institute, Maestro Horvat offered to allow several students to conduct the Zagreb Philharmonic during his rehearsal time. He was preparing Beethoven’s Ninth, so we all auditioned for this opportunity. I was selected to conduct the second movement trio and scherzo reprise. Although I did well in the program, the cutthroat competition among the conducting students discouraged me. These six weeks convinced me that I should concentrate on composition rather than conducting.
Michigan State University
During the final year of my MA program, I was accepted into several doctoral composition programs. I chose the composition program at Michigan State University. Shortly after I was accepted, I received an interview for a sabbatical replacement position at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo Michigan. The position required conducting the wind ensemble for three quarters and the chamber orchestra for one quarter, plus teaching theory. I was able to postpone my enrollment at MSU for a year to take advantage of this teaching opportunity.
At Michigan State, I studied composition with H. Owen Reed. There is one story about Dr. Reed that I must relate. Michigan State did not give a DMA in composition. It offered a Ph.D. in Music Theory and Composition in order to make its doctoral graduates more marketable in academia. During my second quarter studying with him, he took some time during our private lesson to discuss my career plans. He told me that he thought I would be better off changing my major from Music Theory and Composition to simply Music Theory. He said that he was not sure I had what it takes to be a composer, but could have a good career as a professor of music theory. I was quite shaken. I told him that I wanted to be a composer, not a theorist, and I asked if I should apply to a doctoral composition program elsewhere. He smiled and said, “I was just testing you. If I can convince you that you are not a composer, then you are not a composer. If I cannot convince you to give up composition, then you are a composer. There is no need to apply elsewhere. I do this with all my doctoral students to weed out those who are not serious.”
During my first year at MSU, I received a quarter-time assistantship. I assisted Dr. Jere Hutcheson, who taught Harmony I and Harmony II to large classes of about 150 students. Undergraduate music majors attended his lectures and were also required to attend a small discussion group led by a graduate assistant. In addition to working with Dr. Hutcheson in the large lecture classes, and occasionally presenting lectures myself, I was also assigned three discussion groups. During my second year, I continued to work with Dr. Hutcheson, and I received a second quarter-time assistantship working as a “score caller” for WKAR, the MSU public television station. Each week, the station video-taped a half-hour recital by a pianist, or by an instrumentalist or singer accompanied by a pianist. Usually there were two cameras in the studio. The producer planned each camera angle and indicated in the score exactly where (on which beat) each shot was to occur. My job was to sit next to the director in the control booth and cue him exactly when each shot was to change. This was very much like a conductor following a soloist and cuing a member of the orchestra when to come in. I was forced to learn a lot of repertoire. I remember working with famous soloists such as Ruth Laredo, Jerome Rose, and Rudolf Buchbinder. Probably the most challenging assignment was when we recorded the four violin and piano sonatas of Charles Ives with Paul Zukofsky and Gilbert Kalisch.
Development
California State University, Northridge
Dr. Reed considered it part of his responsibility to place each of his doctoral students in their first job. He had been able to do so for every one of his doctoral students. He had a map of the US in his office with numerous pins stuck in it, each one representing the location of each of his doctoral graduates’ first job. I was his last doctoral student before he retired. If I did not get a position, Dr. Reed would lose his perfect record! I applied to every position where I thought I was even remotely qualified. I had only one interview, and that one was not successful. I resigned myself to being Dr. Reed’s first failure, and to staying at MSU for a third year to work on my dissertation. The orchestra conductor, Dennis Burkh, offered me the graduate conducting assistantship, which I accepted. In late May of my second year, Dr. Reed received a phone call from the Music Department at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). It seems that one faculty member had died suddenly, and another was leaving to teach elsewhere. The department had decided to teach beginning theory to a large lecture class of more than 100 students, and it needed someone with experience teaching large classes beginning in the fall. Because of my two-years’ experience as Dr. Hutcheson’s graduate assistant, Dr. Reed recommended me, and I was invited for an interview. This interview went very well, and I was offered the position. I gave up the conducting assistantship at MSU to accept a full-time teaching position in a large music program (650 majors). Dr. Reed’s placement record remained perfect at his retirement.
I remained at CSUN for the next 38 years, teaching just about every theory class in the department, as well as some musicology and research courses. I also “defected” into administration for about half of my career at CSUN. After being promoted to full professor, I was asked to serve for a year as the Interim Chair of The Department of Art, Three-Dimensional Media. I enjoyed the administrative work and the faculty, and was still able to teach two courses in music. During that year, the position of Associate Dean of the School of the Arts became available. I applied and was offered the position. This was a full-time position, so I had to give up teaching. I held that position for 13 years. While I was associate dean, I also served as Administrator-in-Charge of the Visual Art Program, Acting Chair of the Department of Theatre, and Interim Director of radio station KCSN-FM.
CSUN Radio Days
In the mid-1990s, there was a major reorganization in two of the university’s eight schools. The departments in the School of the Arts (Art, Music and Theatre) joined with three departments from the School of Communication and Professional Studies (Communication Studies, Journalism, Cinema and Television Arts) and the campus radio station, KCSN-FM, to form the College of Arts, Media, and Communication. The addition of the radio station to the college where I was associate dean added another dimension to my career. The station’s format was “classical” music during the week, and an eclectic mix of programming during the week-ends. The station’s program director approached me about writing and hosting a weekly opera program. The only regular radio program in Los Angeles that presented entire operas regularly was the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on another station. I thought writing and presenting a complete opera each week would be impossible, so I suggested that there be two hosts, and that we could alternate making the presentations. The program director agreed, but insisted that for at least the first few programs, we should be on air together. My co-host was an opera aficionado who was not a musician. The first program of “The KCSN Opera House” was Aida. I presented Acts 1 and 3, and he presented acts 2 and 4. For the most part, we did appear together each week, with one of us summarizing the plot and giving a few musical examples, and the other doing general announcements and making comments. I liked to compare this to sports broadcasting with a play-by-play announcer and the color commentator. We switched roles each week.
Six months after we started the program, the Los Angeles Opera contacted the station and said that its General Director, Peter Hemmings, would like to appear on the show to preview the company’s next season. He came to the studio to record a program. He previewed each production, and I played an excerpt from each opera on the season schedule. LA Opera must have liked what they heard because the season preview became an annual event in The KCSN Opera House. Shortly thereafter, Los Angeles Opera and The KCSN Opera House formed an ongoing relationship. LA Opera underwrote the program and gave us several pairs of tickets to each production for us to use as membership benefits. I agreed to present a recording of each opera in their season the week before it opened. I also included an interview with someone involved with each production. I was able to interview conductors such as Richard Bonynge, James Conlon, and Julius Rudel, directors such as Ian Judge and Garry Marshall, singers including Federica von Stade, Samuel Ramey and even Patty Lupone and Audra MacDonald. Soon we started a similar relationship with Opera Pacific in Orange County. In 2003, my co-host left the program, and I continued to present an opera each week. Since I had already written plot summaries and selected musical examples for more than 100 operas, I was able to record a program each week, sometimes recycling material from previous broadcasts. I continued the show alone for another 10 years until the station switched formats in 2013. I estimate that I was the primary or sole host for about 750 programs. I have recordings of every one of them, either on audio cassette or compact disc.
My goal in my opera presentations was to guide listeners through the opera by summarizing the plot of each act and presenting some musical examples to serve as guideposts. I also decided to make opera fun and place my tongue in my cheek as often as I could. For example. I began each program with a piece of music that hinted at the opera I was presenting, not from the opera itself. For example, for Madama Butterfly, I used “The Girl I Left Behind Me;” for Lucia di Lammermoor I used the theme from “I Love Lucy;” for Die Götterdämmerung, I used The Platters recording of “Twilight Time.”
Recapitulation
In 2000, the CSUN president resigned; the provost became interim president; my dean became interim provost, and I became interim dean and then permanent dean. Between my administrative duties and the radio program, I had little time for composition. Although I never did stop composing, my output suffered. I started on the Faculty Early Retirement Program in 2008 and retired fully in 2013 after 38 years at CSUN.
CODA
Now that I have left academia, I can devote more time to composition, travel, and playing the horses. (See that story under “Composer as Horseplayer and Vice Versa.”) I have closed several sections of my life and am devoting more time to those activities that interest and inspire me. I have completed the exposition, development and recapitulation of my life, and am now in the midst of a coda of Beethovenian proportions.